Born Sinner (Se7en Sinners #1)

by S. L. Jennings

  I climb into bed not much later, exhausted and emotionally drained. I can’t process it all at once, so I focus on one thing and one thing only: my complicated feelings for a monster whose true nature is to kill me. Even that seems too much to decipher, considering I don’t even know what I feel. I know he scares me. I know he makes it impossible to breathe when he’s around. But I also know that something within me craves him like I’ve never craved anything in my entire life. Maybe it’s the angel-demon thing. Maybe the Jumper’s seduction draws me to him for the same reason the Se7en are all on edge with me around.

  But as he steps from the bathroom, fresh from the shower and dressed in nothing but low-slung sweatpants, I know it’s more than that.

  Tiny liquefied crystals dry on his bronzed skin, adorning the swirls and lines of blue-black ink. I allow myself one small kindness: I look at him. Really look at him, unabashedly, unafraid. And what I see is…beautiful.

  The lines of scripture that cover his arms speak of words of redemption and salvation. Revelations, Jude, Romans, Matthew, Luke. I know these words, and I can understand why he chose them. They’re his life story—his fall from grace and the journey back to God’s favor.

  On his chest, an intricate design covers his entire left pec. I’ve seen the same one on Cain’s massive bicep and noticed it on Lily’s shoulder blade, peeking out from her jumpsuit earlier tonight. I sit up on my knees, hoping to get a better look. Legion follows my eyes and looks down.

  “It’s the symbol of the Se7en,” he explains. “The number seven is self-explanatory. The feathers are for the wings that were lost.”

  “Wings? You had wings?”

  He angles his body so I can view the two tribal-like bands that run from the tops of his shoulders to the middle of his back. They’re marked with distinct whorls and characters that I can’t translate, shaped into long, thin rectangles.

  “They were taken when I fell. Most demons are given wings as well—bat-like, black, vicious things studded with talons—but I never accepted them. I refused. The wings of the Seraph are massive and regal, and would span the length of this entire room. Sometimes I think I still feel them…” He dips his head down and slightly shudders, casting the memory to his own dark corner. I wonder what other sadness still haunts that cold, dead space. I wonder if they feel anything like mine. “The others left their wings behind when we chose this life. However, they can be summoned if we go back.”

  I incline my torso a little more, moving closer to where he stands at the foot of the bed. The runes within those bars of ink look like twisting vines reaching for the heavens. But upon closer inspection, I realize it’s so much more.

  The top sections are cast in what appears to be rays of brilliant light streaming through clouds. Where the inked light starts to fade, a new section materializes. Growth and life and change. Humanity. Foliage sprouts from the shaded earth and birds fly between the strange characters. It’s beautiful in its fragility but, just like my world, something dark and far scarier lurks below.

  The very bottoms of the bands are veiled in black, rippled in what looks like angry fire. There’s nothing there. No life. No light. No hope. Just the darkness of despair layered upon the deaths of countless lost souls. Lost souls like him…and me.

  In the tribute to his stripped wings, Legion has etched his fall from God’s favor. Maybe it’s to remind him of what he once was and all that he lost. Maybe it’s a reminder of how to get back.

  I dare to touch the smooth, marked skin with the barest brush of my fingertips. He shivers, yet holds still, allowing me to trace the map of his origin. His skin burns, but so does mine. Cold doesn’t exist when he’s near.

  “It’s beautiful,” I whisper, my voice filled with wonder. You’re beautiful. “Can you get them back some day?”

  He shakes his head before turning to look at me, his bare chest and abs just a whisper from my still outstretched hand. “No. It’d be impossible.”

  “Why didn’t you want your demon wings?”

  Silver pools of pain swirl in his eyes, hypnotizing me. I want to dive in and save him…save him from himself. “Because I didn’t want to lose myself.”

  I remember what Lilith had said to me days ago. He feels so much, contains so much suffering, for he is Legion. He is not one, but many. And sometimes, it’s hard for him to distinguish what’s singularly him—and what’s them. All this time he’s spent searching for penance for each one of them. Yet, I can tell he hasn’t forgiven himself.

  Earlier this evening, we shared a moment borne of lust. But this…this is carved of something else entirely.

  “It’s late,” he says, breaking the spell of silence. He steps back and strides to his side of the bed. “We should sleep.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. It is late, but every cell in my body is practically humming with sensation. I don’t know how I’ll sleep a wink, especially with him beside me.

  He slips into the sheets while I click off the lamp. When we’re both settled beneath the covers, he heaves a heavy, exasperated sigh.

  “I felt you tonight.”

  I turn to him in the dark. “Huh?”

  “I felt you. Your heart rate was elevated. Your pulse was wild. Something was happening in that bathroom.”

  I swallow down the truth, feeling my cheeks heat with shame. “It was nothing.”

  “I felt you, Eden. It wasn’t nothing. I felt your body trembling. I felt things I…I haven’t felt in a very long time.” He releases a heavy breath. “Look, you don’t have to tell me, but I know. And I understand that you have human, carnal needs. So if you need to sate them—if you need relief—I won’t stand in your way.”

  I nod, even though he can’t see me, and turn away from him.

  Some time in the night, my entire frame is gobbled up by comforting warmth. A nightmare never comes.

  It’s barely dawn when I’m awaken by the ear-splitting crack of dresser drawers being slammed shut. My skull is hosting a miniature marching band, and my eyes feel like I’ve been staring at the sun. My tongue is sandpaper and my mouth feels like I’ve been gurgling with chalk dust. I’ve been drunk enough times to know that I’m hungover. And while champagne hangovers are already shitty enough, champagne and punch hangovers clearly take the whole shit-filled cake. I need at least another five hours before I feel human again.

  “Rise and shine!” Lilith chirps, way too damn chipper after the night we just had. Hell, she was still up when I went to bed.

  “What the hell,” I croak, my throat so dry that I can actually feel my vocal cords rubbing against each other with every agonizing word. “What are you doing here so early?”

  “Packing.” She neatly folds a slouchy, off-the-shoulder sweater and places it in a suitcase propped up on the bed.

  “Packing? For what?”

  “You, Legion, Phenex, and Toyol are going on a little trip. Toyol got word from the warlock insider. He’s willing to meet—but on his terms, and on his territory. So you have to go to him.”

  “Oh.” A spike of fear pierces my nerves. Warlocks, witches…I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.

  “You better get a move on. You’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

  Thirty minutes? I muster what little strength I have left and lift myself out of bed. The room rocks and sways, and I nearly give up and flop back onto the bed. This is our chance, and I can’t ruin it over a hangover. I will push through.

  “Where are we even going?” I ask her, practically crawling my way to the bathroom. I feel like I’m going to need to brush my teeth for eight hours straight just to get the booze grit off of them.

  Lilith pauses just long enough to shoot me a devilish smile, her eyebrows wriggling impishly. “Colorado Springs.”

  “Why couldn’t we fly again?” I ask, fidgeting in the passenger seat of the Jag. Legion focuses on the long stretch of I-80 before us, but I don’t doubt he’s rolling his eyes behind his dark Ray-Bans.

  “If a human is Called while ai
rborne, it would end badly. And I don’t think we’d be able to check an AR-15, six glocks, and ammo with our luggage.”

  My eyes bulge from their sockets. “You brought all those weapons?”

  His mouth twitches with a would-be smirk. “Eden, that’s just what I have in this car. Toyol and Phenex are carrying just as much in their vehicle, along with Toyol’s Katanas.”

  “But why? Is this warlock a threat to us?”

  “Everyone is a threat, Eden.”

  I take a moment to let that sink in. Everyone is a threat. For the rest of my life—however long that might be—I’ll always be on guard, always looking over my shoulder. I can’t hide out in the apartment all the time, and I don’t want to rely on others for my safety. I’ve used my ability as a crutch since I discovered I could manipulate people with just a single, whispered word. But what if I can’t use it? What if I’m up against something inhuman?

  “I want to learn how to fight.”

  At that, Legion finally looks over at me. “What?”

  “I want to learn how to fight. I can’t expect you all to protect me while I just sit back and cower. I should do something—be an asset. And it’s not like I can live with you forever.”

  He looks back at the road, this lips flattened into a grim line. “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” I nod, and meaning it. “Phenex almost died because of me. If I trained and learned to protect myself, I could help.”

  “If that’s what you want,” he responds flatly.

  “But that’s not what you want.”

  I watch him purse his lips in distaste before he answers, “I want whatever keeps you safe, Eden. If teaching you to fight gives you an added sense of security that I can’t provide, then so be it.”

  He says the words but they’re weighted with a deeper meaning. One rooted in past pain. “L, I didn’t mean that I don’t feel secure. I do. And while I don’t understand why you’re doing all this for me, I appreciate it—for my sake, and the safety of those around me. I just hate feeling helpless. And I don’t want to be a burden.”

  “What makes you think you’re a burden?” he practically barks at me.

  I shake my head. “I just don’t get it. You heard The Watcher—I’m not…I’m not a good person. Why save me? Why care whether I live or die? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “No, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? Do you take all your missions home with you to sleep in your bed?”

  “No,” he grits, nostrils flaring.

  “Then why, L? Why risk all this for me? Why waste your time on a single weak, pathetic human who was meant to be a weapon of evil?”

  I glare at his profile, watching the way he works his strong, angled jaw for agonizingly long seconds before he finally answers. “Adriel dies if you’re killed. She’s able to jump from viable host to host, but she has to be willing. Even if she was, the host has to be living.”

  I feel like I’ve just been slapped back to reality.

  All this time, all these nights sleeping tucked against his chest, it wasn’t me he was shielding from the world. It was Adriel. It’s not me he wants to protect. It’s the angel who intruded into my life and my body when I was five years old.

  The angel who stood by and watched me be beaten and starved. The angel who gave me the power to inflict my desperate rage on innocent people.

  I feel like such a fucking fool.

  Last night, something sparked between us. And maybe it was just the innate reaction from the Jumper, but I know Legion felt it too. Shit, I literally felt him against my ass. And then after his shower, I could have sworn that we shared something more than alcohol-induced lust. He was vulnerable in a way I had never expected him to be. He let me touch him…let me see him…if only for a moment. In return, I allowed myself to feel something other than fear or confusion, or even pain. I felt hope, understanding. I was empathetic towards that small kernel of truth—that small act of broken humanity.

  And now, I see that it hadn’t been me he was exposing himself to. It was Adriel. I was just the vessel, a mortal sack of flesh and bone that stood between him and who he truly wanted to connect with.

  I don’t speak again for many miles. When we stop at a rest stop to gas up, I can’t escape the confines of the car fast enough.

  “Wait,” he says, before I can place both feet on the fuel-slickened pavement. The smell of gasoline is nauseating, but it’s much better than being trapped beside him and his scent of midnight jasmine and kindled earth. “You shouldn’t go in alone.”

  “I’m fine,” I say flatly, making a move to stand.

  “Let me go with you.”

  “No.”

  He removes his glasses and runs a hand through his hair, causing a wayward lock to shade those peculiar silver eyes, casting them in twilight. “Eden,” he sighs.

  “What?” I snap.

  When he doesn’t respond, I take it as my cue to exit, part of me wishing he had fought a little harder. I would have still insisted I go alone, but still…his irritation was better than nothing.

  When I exit the rest stop bathroom, which was surprisingly tidy—all things considered—Legion is standing by the door. I fight the urge to grin up at him, remembering that it’s not me he’s looking after.

  “Would you like anything to eat or drink?” he asks warily.

  I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  I turn to head back to the car, yet he doesn’t follow. When he emerges minutes later, he’s carrying a plastic shopping bag.

  “I got you water and some sugary coffee crap,” he grimaces, the expression amusing on his usually hardened face. “They didn’t have anything fresh that looked appetizing so I got you turkey jerky, trail mix and something that is supposed to be veggie chips.”

  I take the processed contraband and offer a half-grin of thanks. “No candy or chips?”

  “Hell no. You’d be better off eating fiberglass. I’m not busting my ass to keep you alive only to let you die at the hands of hydrogenated oils.”

  I want to laugh, but he’s dead serious. Still, a small smile creeps onto my face.

  “What?” he asks, starting up the car.

  I shake my head. “You’re pretty much an oxymoron, ya know.”

  He frowns. Not in the way that hardens his features, but in the way that makes him seem almost…human. “How so?”

  We pull out of the rest stop with Toyol and Phenex trailing us closely in the black Range Rover.

  “You’re a freakin’ immortal who’s made it his life’s work to kill people. Hell, you originally wanted to kill me. Yet you’re worried about hydrogenated oils? What’s next? A stash of chia seeds and quinoa in the glove compartment?”

  Legion winces just slightly before doing something that completely unarms me.

  He laughs.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right. Life is short, L. At least for me it is. I might as well die happy covered in orange Cheetos dust than waste away eating air-crisped cardboard.”

  He laughs again, the sound like velvet to my ears. There’s no hint of darkness or malice. There’s no underlying condescension in his sultry baritone. He laughed because something I said was funny. And through all the murk and mud of my soiled soul, I found a reason to make a joke, even if it was corny as hell. It was our corny as hell, just for a moment.

  “Next time, I pick the snacks,” I say, watching the way his cheek dimples with his smile. It’s like the gesture is so rare and so beautiful that his face wants to covet it forever, scribing the moment deep within his skin. “You have dimples,” I find myself gasping at the discovery.

  He gives me a quick glance, yet makes no move to hide them. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

  “Why haven’t I ever noticed them?”

  “I don’t know, Eden,” he shrugs. “You must not have looked hard enough.”

  I want to respond, but there’s nothing left to say. Maybe I had been so busy
looking for reasons to be repulsed by him that I failed to see the beauty.

  No, that’s not right either.

  Maybe I had seen it. Maybe it scared me the way his stunning physical attributes completely unarmed me. Maybe my attraction to him had grown so strong that I wanted to hate him—needed to hate him—to give myself a chance at redemption. Because if I let it take over, I’d find myself…feeling for him. Falling for him. And that was absolutely ridiculous in every sense of the word.

  “We need some music,” I say, needing to shake the intimacy of silence. We’d been driving for hours with nothing more than the sounds of my anxious breaths replaying on a constant loop.

  I turn the dial for the radio, and am met with a fuckcophany of banjos, guitars and fiddles. I quickly turn it off. “What the hell was that?”

  Legion chuckles, low and sultry. “We’re in Iowa, Eden. Rural Iowa at that. Here.” He presses a button marked with a Bluetooth symbol. “Connect your phone.”

  Gladly, I fish it out of the pocket of my hoodie. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Why not?”

  A flutter of nerves stirs in my belly for some odd reason. Music has always been sacred to me, my escape from the crumbling world outside my headphones. It drowned out the taunting voices in my head, and my own devious consciousness. Sharing it with him is like letting him into that slice of my soul that I had set aside just for me. Something that hadn’t been ravaged by my shame.

  I scroll to my favorite playlist, a mellow mix of hip-hop and alt rock, even a little pop. When a haunting bass line begins to vibrate through the speakers, Legion gives me a sideway glance.

  “What?”

  “Interesting choice,” he shakes his head, the corner of his mouth twitching.

  I bite down on my own smile. “I think it’s fitting.”

  “Monster?”

  “Too close to home?” I ask, my voice dipped in saccharine.

  “No. Not at all. But, really? Kanye?”

  “He’s a Chicago treasure!”

  “But he’s Kanye West. And trust me, it’s not an act. He sincerely believes his own bullshit.”

  I don’t question how he knows that bit of info, but store it away for another time. Instead I scroll to another song. He barks out a laugh as soon as it sounds through the Bose speakers.